


Chasing My Damage

by CyanideBreathmint



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-12
Updated: 2011-09-12
Packaged: 2017-10-23 16:15:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,329
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CyanideBreathmint/pseuds/CyanideBreathmint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arthur’s been running for longer than Cobb has been, even if he won’t admit it to anyone, least of all himself. But what is he running from?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chasing My Damage

**Author's Note:**

> Pre-movie, genderbending, excessive angst, het dream sex with a genderbent forger, slashy waking sex. Mild bondage. This is probably the last pre-movie fic in the Craigslist series but it doesn’t rule out post-movie fics at some later point. Title stolen from yet another Interpol song. I know I’m predictable. Also, if you’re not interested in het, just scroll down to the Eames-POV stuff, where it’s all slash from there, and if you’re not interested in slash, don’t bother reading the Eames-POV stuff. Thank you to [Myranda](http://nagaina-ryuuoh.livejournal.com/) for the beta-reading.

Arthur glanced at the bouquet of violets, held it to his nose and inhaled. A stray fact drifted through his mind borne on the delicate, volatile fragrance, one underscored with the smell of freshly mown grass. _Heartsease_ , he thought. Some older people called violets heartsease even though they did nothing to ease the ache in his own chest. He glanced at the gravestones to his left and right, and continued through the cemetery path until he found the one he wanted.

“Happy birthday, Mal,” he whispered as he laid the flowers against the polished granite. He crouched down and brushed his fingertips against the sun-baked stone, left them there despite the heat. He could almost imagine her turning slowly to dust and bone fragments in the earth beneath his feet. _Thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return,_ he thought.

The sound of crunching gravel interrupted his reverie and he stood and turned to find Eames walking down the same path he had taken, a bouquet of lilies in his hand. “I thought you’d be here,” he said as Arthur stepped aside to let him through, and they stood before Mal’s gravestone for several minutes of silence.

“I didn’t expect you here,” Arthur said finally as Eames crouched to place the lilies beside the violets. “You didn’t know her that well."

“I happened to be in LA for a job, and I thought –” Eames fell silent and squinted against the intense noon sunlight, pulled a pair of sunglasses out of his shirt pocket and put them on.

“Wonder of wonders,” Arthur said when Eames did not continue his sentence. “You can think.”

“Very bloody funny, Arthur. I didn’t know her as well as you did, but it was still the four of us working together on dreamshare. She was a friend.” Eames spoke slowly and softly, his face uncharacteristically pensive under his sunglasses. “I thought she’d be lonely here, with her husband unable to come home.”

“I don’t think she is.” Arthur sighed. “I don’t think she _is_ anything any more.” A welcome breeze whispered across the land and tugged at his necktie and the cuffs of his trousers, brushed lightly against his brow.

Eames raised an eyebrow at that, looked over his sunglasses at Arthur. “How nihilistic of you. What brings you here? I doubt this is a random visit.”

Arthur stuck his hands in his pockets; let the fingers of his right hand brush against his weighted die. If only this were some kind of dream. “Today is her birthday,” he said at last.

Eames glanced at the dates on Mal’s gravestone as though registering them for the first time, nodded. “So it is. Happy birthday, Mallorie, wherever you are.”

“Wherever she is?” Arthur glanced up at Eames in vague surprise. “Do you believe in an afterlife?”

“In a sense.” Eames reached up and tapped his temple with an index finger. “She lives on in our dreams and memories.”

Arthur thought of Cobb’s phantoms and wondered what it’d be like to be haunted by a shade of his own. His memories of Mal were always marred by his constant awareness of her death. “I wish it worked that way for me. I’d have loved to say goodbye.”

Eames took off his sunglasses and glanced searchingly at Arthur, his cool gray eyes oddly sympathetic. “You still can now, if you wish,” he said.

 

* * *

They wound up lying side by side on the bed in Eames’ hotel room with his PASIV unit resting between them, and Arthur could not help but think of a similar room in Glasgow a few months ago.

“Before we do this –” Arthur said, his mouth suddenly dry, “Cobb has enough to deal with. I don’t want him to think I’m some kind of closet necrophile who’s obsessed with his dead wife.”

Eames adjusted the tether on his wrist and then turned his head to look at Arthur. “Do you really think I would tell him anything like that?”

“No,” Arthur said, surprising himself when he did. Trust was a rare commodity in an extractor’s life, and he could not find any other explanation for what they were about to do right now. “Not really.”

“Dreams aren’t real. We just want them to be real,” Eames said gently.

Arthur nodded and let his head sink back in the overstuffed pillow, sighed softly and shut his eyes as he waited for Eames to depress the trigger button on the PASIV. “I’m ready when you are,” he murmured, suddenly very drowsy –

 

* * *

The first thing he woke up to was the scent of Chanel No. 5 in the air, in his nostrils, and he opened his eyes to find Mal sitting primly on the bed beside him. She was wearing her favorite sundress. _The dress we buried her in,_ he realized.

“What’s wrong, Arthur?” she asked, and her fingers were warm and sound around his as he shut his eyes and felt the warmth of tears running down his temples.

“Your dress,” he managed, his voice choked with grief, “You were wearing it for the funeral.”

“Shhh,” she whispered, her breath warm against his ear, freighted with the faintest ghost of red wine. “Keep your eyes closed.” She let go of his hand and he felt the mattress creak softly beside him as she shifted her weight and climbed off the bed. The rustle of cloth seemed absurdly loud in the absence of sight, and then there was the creaking of bedsprings again as she climbed back beside him. “You can open your eyes now,” she said.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“I’m not naked, _mon cher,”_ she said with a little laugh.

Arthur opened his eyes to find her sitting beside him in an oversized man’s shirt – one of his, he realized belatedly, pulled from the wardrobe in the other end of the room.

“Is this better?” she asked as he propped himself up on an elbow to look at her.

“Yes.” Arthur reached out to her; hesitated, afraid that this vision would evaporate like a soap bubble like she had in the other times he had gone under looking for her. “I miss you so much,” he said at last as she closed the gap between them and took his hand again.

“I know,” she murmured softly. He shut his eyes as she hugged him tightly, traced the shell of his ear with gentle fingertips and stroked his hair. Part of him knew that this was Eames – Eames playing Mal to perfection, but he let that go in the simple comfort of her touch and the fragrance of her hair and skin. He had almost forgotten the orange-blossom smell of her hand lotion underneath the Chanel No. 5, and he gasped and stiffened as he felt her press her Cupid’s bow lips against the top of his head.

“Cobb –” he said, pulling suddenly away from her.

“This is another time and place,” she reminded him, and he looked into her face, wanted so badly to believe this substitute Mal.

She ran her left hand over his cheek and he registered the lack of a wedding band on her ring finger, shut his eyes to the truth and the awful memories. “Before the Air Force got in the way,” he said, remembering the fateful phone call and the terse orders.

“And then you had to vanish off the face of the earth and leave me worrying for months,” she said with mock petulance, and that made him reach out to her and kiss her on the forehead.

“The brass didn’t exactly give me the chance to tell anyone when they sent me to Afghanistan,” he whispered into her hair.

“I know,” she murmured, and this time he did not resist when she kissed him on the chin, traced her way up the line of his jaw and pushed him back down onto the bed. He felt his cock stiffen and twitch against his trouser fly as the hem of her shirt rose to reveal the lace edging on her stockings, the pale skin of her upper thighs, a faint glimpse of pink and dark, tangled down. He wanted to reach up and run his fingers along the bumps of her spine; pull her down towards him, but she seized his wrists and held him down. It would have been trivial to pull himself free and wrestle her into submission but he did not. He thought fleetingly of Eames forging Rachel McInnis and how he had held her down while she had gasped her assent, pushed that thought away and chose to lose himself in Mal instead.

She took her hands off his wrists and tugged at the knot of his necktie as he slid a hand up her shirt, traced the curve of her hip and thigh and waist, the soft skin of her belly. His belt buckle was next, and he shuddered at the sweet friction as she ran her hand down his trouser fly but did not unzip him. “God, Mal,” he gasped, reached down to undo his trousers himself, but she held his wrists again and forced them down above his head.

“So impatient,” she purred. He could have resisted easily but he did not, only watched the points of her nipples move against the fabric of her shirt as she took his necktie and tied his hands to the bedstead.

“How am I going to get undressed now?” Arthur asked, and Mal laughed with genuine amusement at the question.

“We don’t have to be _naked_ for this,” she smirked, and his mouth went completely dry as she unbuttoned her shirt very slowly to reveal her collarbones and cleavage and a sliver of belly. Her hands lingered on the last two buttons, and then the shirt swung open to bare her hips and the dark fuzz of her pubic hair, the slick coral of her cunt.

“Please, Mal,” Arthur pulled at the necktie wound around his wrists, his cock now hard enough to ache. She only smiled wickedly as she reached down and stroked her clit in slow, lazy circles, and he watched in growing need as her breathing quickened and her thighs tensed, his hips thrusting futilely in time with her movements as she brought herself off without touching him. She came with a gasp and a long moan and he shut his eyes and sucked gently on the fingers of her right hand when she pressed them against his lips, conscious of the tangy taste of her sex.

“Come here,” Arthur murmured after he had licked her clean. He let his tongue linger on the pads of her fingers even as his own hands started to go numb. “I want to taste you again,” he said, and Mal shifted her weight and came closer to him, knelt straddling his face. The soft skin of her inner thighs was slick with her wetness, and all he knew then was the taste and smell of her, of the sea-salt fragrance of her cunt and her sharp sweat coming through the florals and aldehydes of her perfume. She shuddered as he lapped at her clitoris and the soft folds of her vulva, and the bedstead creaked softly under her grip as they fell into rhythm together, her hips bucking against his mouth in time to the strokes of his tongue. Her movements grew more urgent even as he slowed to savor her moans, and she threw her head back and shouted with relief as he slid his tongue into her, flicked it hard against her clit and sent her tumbling into climax again.

Arthur opened his eyes to watch Mal catch her breath as she fell into bed beside him. Her shirt was now translucent with sweat, the tops of her stockings soaked with her wetness, and he was constantly, achingly aware of his own erection, of the wetness of his pre-ejaculate soaking his own boxers. “I loved you,” he murmured as she opened her eyes and smiled slowly at him.

“I know.” Mal propped herself up on an elbow and rolled onto her knees so she could shrug her shirt off, and he hissed in anticipation as she undid his trouser fly and tugged his soaked boxers off his hips. “You feel so good,” she moaned as she slid wetly onto him, and he could only gasp at the heat of her cunt, at the soft bounce of her breasts as she rode him in a slow, aching rhythm.

“Harder. I want to feel you come in me,” she whispered urgently as drops of sweat ran down her flank. He forgot the ache and numbness in his hands as he sought his own release, his teeth and the sutures of his skull ringing faintly with some kind of sensory overload as his vision started to go, and then there was just white fire up his spine and the base of his skull and the twitching of his cock and balls as he spent himself in her for the last time.

 

* * *

Eames opened his eyes, aware of the sweat soaking his shirt as he sat up in bed, the faint ringing in his ears from the endorphins in his bloodstream. Arthur lay curled up beside him, and he opened his eyes as Eames pulled the cannula from his wrist and reeled the IV line back into his PASIV.

“Did you get the closure you were looking for?” he asked Arthur, who was removing the tether from his own wrist.

“I don’t know. Maybe. I still miss her,” Arthur said slowly, his eyes dark with emotion.

“I know,” Eames said after a long moment of silence. Arthur had fucked Eames in his various guises, but he had _made love_ to Mal. For a moment Eames felt a vague, sad pang of jealousy stir in his chest and hated himself for it. He put the PASIV away and lay back down beside Arthur, half-expecting him to get up and walk away. Arthur did not move, and they lay side-by-side for a few minutes, watching each other with an odd wariness.

Rashly, instinctively Eames leaned in for a kiss, and he tasted salt as their mouths met – Arthur’s tears, or his? He had no answer. Instead he ran his fingers through Arthur’s hair and nipped at his jaw, at the pulse point on his neck above the collar of his shirt. Arthur reached up to Eames as he pulled his face away and traced his thumb carefully along the line of his cheekbone.

This was not the calculated pleasure of that morning in Glasgow, or the dominance games they had played in the past. There was an unfamiliar desperation in Arthur’s touch, something rawer and more intimate than their previous encounters. Despite that Eames knew that he was being used again, but he ceased to care as Arthur undid his shirt and ran the wet velvety heat of his mouth against his neck and collarbones. Eames lay back and grabbed a fistful of Arthur’s hair, urged him lower as he left a rapidly cooling trail of kisses down his chest and belly.

Arthur slowed and hesitated when he reached the waistband of Eames’ trousers, palmed the sensitive underside of his cock through his clothing with slow, deliberate movements. The sensation was delicious and maddening, and Eames gasped at the sweet friction, almost painful in its intensity, and then gasped again as Arthur tugged down at the zipper and sprang him free. Eames let go of his hair, pushed him gently away as he reached down to undo his belt buckle. “Not this time, darling,” he panted as Arthur glanced up at him, confused. “I want to fuck you. I want to come inside you.” He ran his thumb along Arthur’s cheekbone, mirrored his gesture from earlier and felt him tremble at the touch.

They kissed again, ravenous, surer this time, and Eames reached up and grabbed Arthur’s shoulders, rolled him gently onto his back. Arthur did not resist. Instead he unzipped his own trousers, stroked himself languidly as Eames worked the buttons of his waistcoat, tugged at the knot of his necktie. Eames had never seen Arthur this emotionally naked before. There had always been a sort of defiance in Arthur’s gaze, a need for control even in submission and assent. This trust and passivity filled Eames’ veins with hot lightning. It quickened his pulse and breath as he finished stripping Arthur of his layers of clothing and gazed down at the entirety of him, of this sleek, beautiful man lying in bed beneath him.

“Why are you letting me do this?” Eames asked Arthur as he straightened up and reached for the condoms and the bottle of lubricant.

“I’m tired,” Arthur whispered softly in reply.

 _What of?_ Eames thought but did not say. He could guess the answer easily enough. He took in Arthur’s old faded scars as he tore the foil packet open, studied the veins and sinews lying in shallow relief under his skin as he rolled the latex over his aching cock. He pushed gently back on Arthur’s knees and squeezed lubricant onto his hand, ran a slick finger against the soft creases of his scrotum and over his perineum and slid it very slowly into the tight heat of his asshole. He was rewarded immediately with a gasp as Arthur tensed around him, smiled at the soft, disappointed moan when he pulled his hand away to squeeze more lubricant on his fingers.

Eames was still half-dressed but could not care any more – the only thing that registered on his consciousness was Arthur lying beneath him, eager for ravishment. He spread more lubricant over his sheathed cock and leaned in over Arthur again, grasped his hips with both hands and _pushed._

“You’re so tight, darling,” Eames hissed, his voice breaking as he eased the head of his cock into the perfect heat of Arthur’s lube-slick asshole.

“Break me in,” Arthur gasped. “Loosen me up.” He arched his back and wrapped his legs around Eames’ waist so he couldn’t pull away, and Eames thrust deeper into Arthur, sought the wet-velvet heaven beyond the muscular tightness of his asshole. Arthur reached down and guided Eames’ hand over his cock even as he pressed his heels into the small of Eames’ back, pulling him further in. Eames grinned at the sharp intake of breath as he ran his callused thumb against the silky, sensitive skin of Arthur’s glans, and then gasped himself as Arthur tensed around him in response, exquisitely tight against each thrust. There was no deliberation in their movements, only a growing need and urgency as they fell into rhythm together.

Arthur came first. He gasped and went very still as Eames thrust deeply into him, tensed up as a long shudder ran down his spine. His come spilled hotly over Eames’ knuckles and his belly, and he clenched down around the shaft of Eames’ cock with a brief sob. This was enough to tip Eames over the edge and he clawed at Arthur’s ass with his free hand, listened to his gasps as he arched upward and slammed deep into Arthur to spend himself in long, aching spasms against the molten velvet heat of his asshole.

* * *

They fell into an exhausted sleep on top of the sodden sheets, Arthur’s spunk drying sticky on Eames’ hand and belly. Eames woke up several hours later, shivering a little as the evening air started to cool. He reached across the bed drowsily and then opened his eyes fully when his hand found rumpled sheets and nothing else. Reflexively he glanced down at his wrist, saw the pinprick from the PASIV unit, and then found his trousers in the heap on the hotel room floor. He pulled his poker chip from the pocket, rolled it over his knuckles and tested its altered balance, and then sighed softly and heavily to himself.

* * *

He would not see Arthur again.


End file.
